Many Years Later
by Loafer
Summary: Nearly three decades after the finale, the gang catches up after a funeral. Long one-shot.


**Disclaimer**: _**psych**_ belongs to other people.  
**Rating**: T because I always do T unless I do M, but there's no M here.

**Summary**: Many years after the _psych_ finale, the gang catches up after a funeral. I really tried to make this plausible: to have everyone's lives turn out in relatively believable ways. It may not be how _you_ want things, but I tried to take everyone's known characteristics into consideration to come up with likely choices and events in their lives. Hope you like, sorry if you don't, c'est la vie.

**. . . . .**

**. . . . **

**. . .**

Gus looked at the man across the table: he was still lanky and still conveyed a "don't screw with me" aura—if tempered slightly by time and his present relaxation—and his eyes were just as vivid blue as he remembered. Only his hair was substantially different: nearly all white, and a lot longer than the SBPD or he himself would have allowed back in those days.

There was the cane, too, hooked over the back of his chair, but Gus figured Lassiter only used it grudgingly.

Lassiter lifted his glass and scanned the room briefly. There were dozens of people in attendance, with conversation a low and steady hum broken by outbursts of laughter time and again.

He sipped the beer before he spoke. "Tell me, Guster. What happened with Spencer and O'Hara when you two moved to San Francisco?"

Gus blinked. _Of all things to ask about…_

"You mean in 2014? That far back?"

"That far back."

"That was—" He did the math. "That was twenty-seven years ago. You _know_ what happened, don't you? From Juliet?" Because he sure didn't want to relive it.

This earned him a laconic smile. "Not exactly the kind of thing we chatted about."

"No, I guess it wasn't." Gus shook his head. "Hard to believe so much time has gone by. How's Old Sonora?"

"Gangbusters. Especially in the summer. Lily's about to take over the reins for me."

"You're retiring?"

His tone of surprise made Lassiter laugh. "Thanks for the compliment. I'll still be the Sheriff for awhile, but she'll handle the operations. I figure turning seventy-two is a pretty good reason to step back a little."

Then there was the cane… but Gus kept his mouth shut. Not like he wasn't advancing in years himself. "I don't see how it's possible. Lily was only _just_ born," he mused. "In the back of the food truck."

"The roach coach," Lassiter corrected. "And that was something else which happened twenty-seven years ago. She's getting married in two months. Are you stalling?"

"No, I'm just… nostalgic, I guess. Seeing everyone here like this…" He looked around at the sea of familiar—if older—faces here in the hall, gathered at tables or standing at the bar. Memories floated by, almost tangible in the so-so lighting.

"Don't go mushy on me now, Guster."

There was a trace of amusement in the way he said it, as well as in his perceptive gaze.

"I am _not_ going mushy, but I'll say this much. If I _were_ going mushy—and I'm not admitting to anything of the sort—it's permissible. I'm a venerable senior citizen of sixty-five years of age. I have earned my right to feel nostalgia." He glared. "Or get mushy."

The initial response from Lassiter was a 'hrmph,' followed by, "I suppose those were _sympathetic_ tears earlier today, then."

"Shut up, old-timer."

Lassiter laughed. "Well, the old Chief wouldn't have minded, and he'd have liked this shindig. He'd have had a good time."

"Should have been you," Gus said without thinking.

Lassiter's eyebrows shot up. "In the casket?"

"No! I mean…" He was flustered. "I mean, I expected—we probably all expected—you to stay on as Chief until you dropped dead. Not—"

"Not walk away at fifty," Lassiter finished wryly. "I know. But I have no regrets, Guster. None."

Gus still recalled his shock at hearing Lassiter had stepped down all those years ago. "What made you do it?"

He shrugged. "I was sick of the desk, and sick of the paperwork. And the meetings. _And_ the red tape. Betsy Brannigan was kicking ass at all the stuff I'd never wanted to _stop_ doing, and meanwhile Lily was getting older and I wasn't getting to be the dad I swore I'd be."

"But how did you end up at Old Sonora?"

"Hank never sold the property after he shut it down because the planned toll road went bust, and when he died, he left the property to me. Marlowe and I went up there to look at it and…" He smiled. "We got to talking about possibilities. About taking chances and being there for Lily as much as we could."

"So with a little marketing and a facelift…"

"Old Sonora was new again." Lassiter tipped an imaginary hat. "Sheriff Lassiter at your service." Two decades in sunlight and fresh air had tanned his fair skin, and Gus could easily imagine him standing tall in the dusty Faux West town. Cane notwithstanding.

"Who'd have thought an all-business guy like you could basically _play_ for twenty years?" It was a crazy concept even now.

"I owe it to Henry Spencer. Right after I found out Marlowe was pregnant, he said there'll always be another bad guy out there, but there'll only ever be one first step, and one first bike ride, and one first… anything." He smiled. "He was right. Choosing to be there at Marlowe's side to raise Lily 24/7 was the smartest thing I ever did."

"She turned out great." Gus searched the room until he found her, tall like her father, blonde like her mother, and her eyes just as blue as Lassiter's. She was laughing at something her fiancé was saying, and he caught Lassiter's fond expression as he looked in her direction too.

"She did. I thanked Henry more than once for the advice."

Henry Spencer had been good at advice. Gus wished he'd taken more of it himself all those years ago, but this wasn't the time to second-guess his own life. Instead he said, "Now, _his_ was a good funeral."

"Hell yeah. He'd have loved it."

Henry had keeled over, literally, four years earlier at the age of eighty-two while on a fishing trip with some of his old students. He'd taught criminology at the college—and trained would-be private detectives on the side—from the time Gus and Shawn left Santa Barbara until he was nearly eighty. The only reason he stopped at all was heavy-duty arthritis, but it didn't affect his ability to spin fishing yarns and quiz senior citizens about the number of hats in any room once he took up residence at the assisted-living facility… where he was also popular with the ladies and more than one of the nurses.

"Shawn took that hard, you know."

"I imagine."

"Took him a lotta years to really say out loud how important his dad was. I mean, Henry _knew_, and Shawn knew he knew, but you know Shawn."

"Mmmm-hmmm." Lassiter left it at that.

"The grandkids helped. Henry was the ultimate doting grandpa."

"Yeah, he brought them up to Old Sonora a few times. We made sure they found a few nuggets over in the gold mine. I think the oldest boy had a crush on Lily."

"I'll bet. I heard she's a sharpshooter."

"Like her mom." He smirked.

"More like you, I think."

"She's won a handful of state competitions, but then look who taught her."

"Still modest, I see," Gus said dryly.

Lassiter smirked again. "She also shares my hatred for squirrels."

Gus eyed him.

"Which is why," he added with a lazy smile, "we haven't had a squirrel problem at Old Sonora in fifteen years."

Gus, suddenly chilled, decided it was best to make no comment.

Buzz McNab passed the table heading for the bar, where his ever-sweet Francie was holding out a drink (probably milk or lemonade). "Hey, guys," he called to them. "Save me a seat!"

"He was already on his way to being a good detective when I left." Lassiter jerked his head toward Buzz. "Brannigan swore she'd build him from the ground up and she kept her word."

"Must have been a challenge even for her."

"Eh. She _needed_ a challenge after blazing her way through the department and breaking all the records O'Hara and I set."

Gus thought he sounded bemused rather than annoyed—another sign of mellowing with age?

Lassiter continued, "She did good work with McNab. He's not the kind of cop who stands out or even wants to—he's a solid second, and still a little gullible—but he does straight-up good police work."

Buzz's hair was mostly white too and he'd lost a little of his considerable height—and picked up a paunch—but his sunny disposition hadn't faded a bit, and if he knew that his old hero Chief Lassiter had given him that much praise, he'd have passed out.

"What happened to Brannigan anyway?" She'd disappeared years before and whenever Gus asked, he got headshakes in response.

"I'm not sure you can handle the truth."

"Suck it."

Lassiter grinned. "You heard about Strode, right?"

"Dropped dead in the morgue? Official story was heart attack; unofficial story was he was found in one of the drawers wearing only half a rabbit costume?"

"Yeah, but there's an _unofficial_ unofficial story too." He was still grinning.

"Wouldn't have thought the SBPD would engage in a cover-up, Chief."

"_Former_ Chief. Now _and_ then. It was two years after I retired, and there wasn't any criminal activity involved, just spectacularly bad judgment. Seems Brannigan developed a soft spot for Woody the Weirdo and agreed to participate in his apparent plushie predilection, something about which I care to know no more than I already unfortunately do."

"Are you saying…"

"They found her sobbing in her car… with the other half of the costume."

"Oh my gosh."

"Dressed as Elmer Fudd."

"Oh my _gosh_."

"She's been voluntarily detained in an upscale mental health facility ever since. They can't shake her out of her certainty that she killed the wabbit for weal."

Gus stifled a snicker.

"She leads the other residents in craft activities. I visited her a few years later and she gave me a crocheted and yet oddly sparkly cover for my visitor's pass." If there was a mere gleam in the bright blue eyes before, it was in full force now. "So what about you, Guster? Your new book's out, right?"

"Number four in _The Drug Man_ series, out last month and on the way up the best-seller charts as we speak," Gus said proudly.

"I read the first two. Not bad."

Also high praise, he decided. "I figured between my expertise in the pharmaceutical field and my experience as a private detective, I could probably put together a decent murder mystery."

"Looks like you did. Good job, Guster." Lassiter nodded, and Gus heard no sarcasm in his tone. "You were always the brighter bulb in the package." He raised a hand to stay Gus' protest. "I mean bright about things like paying bills and having backup plans."

He subsided; Lassiter wasn't exactly wrong on this point. "Marriage and kids settled Shawn down. Not that he had a lot of options. She wouldn't _let_ him have options."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "He was probably scared of her."

"Hmmm… okay, maybe a little. But after it didn't work out with Juliet and he came back here, she turned out to be just what he needed, because she _adored_ him. She still does."

"How old are the spawn now?"

Gus did a mental inventory. "Zane just graduated from college. Curt is eighteen and Val's sixteen. They're all good kids."

"And yours?"

He tried not to puff up with pride. "My twins are seventeen perfect years old. They are perfectly formed, perfectly sensible, perfectly nice and represent me perfectly in public. Angelina is an excellent tap dancer and Angelo has inherited my Super Sniffer."

Lassiter rolled his eyes again. "Okay, so your kids haven't disgraced the Guster family name. Where's Emmanuelle?"

Gus pointed across the room. "She's playing poker with Iris Vick."

"Iris'll cut her if she cheats."

"My perfect wife doesn't have to cheat at _anything_."

"Iris is Vick's daughter. She has 'tough cop' in her veins." He sounded proud.

And well he could be, Gus reflected, having been present at her birth. "Did you really faint after she was born?"

Lassiter's head snapped around and the blue eyes took on a familiar iciness—one Gus still feared just a little tiny bit despite the passage of time, because Lassiter would always, always be able to kick his ass or the ass of _anyone_ in possession of an ass which needed kicking. "No, I did not. Why the hell would I faint? I cut the damned umbilical cord!"

"Aftershock?"

"Guster."

"Well, I heard you did, that's all. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not every day a man has to watch his boss in labor, let alone be the first one to hold her infant daughter. Anyone would pass out."

Lassiter's glare cut through the table between them. "Guster."

_Uh… best to drop it_.

"I talked to Karen earlier. She said Iris is rising up through the ranks at the Frisco PD and that it has nothing to do with her mother being the former mayor."

"Mayor Vick," Lassiter mused, relaxing. "I read once that most citizens didn't hate her. That's an impressive statement about a mayor. I despised most of the mayors in Santa Barbara over the years."

"That's because you always erred on the side of despising, Lassie."

"True, but don't call me that. One of the best things about moving to Old Sonora was getting away from that damned name."

Gus was about to explain that after a surprisingly short time, Shawn hadn't even meant it as a putdown: he was simply incorrigible about nicknames, and once he'd assigned one, it stuck—but just then he spotted the former mayor in question across the room.

Still trim and well put together, Karen Vick was the same age as Lassiter, and like Lassiter, she appeared to be in great shape, her honey-blond hair now gray, but her large brown eyes just as warm during their brief conversation about the late Chief and the many years since she'd left Santa Barbara with her family.

So many years. It just wasn't possible.

"How did we all get so old?" he wondered aloud. "Not that we don't all look damned good, but weren't we only _just_ in our thirties?"

"Not me. I was born forty."

Gus glanced at him. "I believe it."

Lassiter seemed unoffended.

He took a chance. "I… I'm sorry about Marlowe." It was something he'd wanted to say for a long time.

"Thanks for the donation to the Heart Association," Lassiter responded without inflection. "They sent me a letter for everyone who contributed."

The funeral had been private, two years ago. Lassiter and Lily wanted it that way, burying Marlowe on the property she called home.

"It was the least anyone could do." He'd felt helpless when he heard, knowing Lassiter wouldn't want sympathy no matter how sincere it was.

"It was sudden, you know. Massive. She was in the cantina replacing the breakaway bottles and talking to Miss Becky about the saloon girl costumes and she just… dropped." His voice was husky, and when he tilted his head to take another drink, Gus could see a sheen in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said again, thinking it sounded so very lame, and wondering how _he_ would hold up if Emmanuelle had the audacity to die first.

With a half-shrug, Lassiter drank again. "It's okay. She died doing something she loved in a place she loved knowing _she_ was loved. Not a bad way to go, really."

No, it wasn't a bad way at all. "You had a good life together."

"Yeah we did." He straightened up. "Not a life I ever saw coming, but one I'm glad to have lived. You going to tell me about Spencer and O'Hara in San Francisco or what?"

He felt a wave of discomfort. "Why are you so interested now?"

"Well, I _was_ interested because I was always curious about that ill-fated relationship. But _now_ I'm interested because you so obviously don't want to talk about it."

Gus' discomfort rose further. So many years, and he still felt unsettled about it. "Maybe you should respect my reluctance, then."

"What are you reluctant about?" inquired Karen Vick as she claimed the empty chair at their table.

Lassiter smiled at her. "Hey, Chief."

"Hey yourself, _Chief_."

"Excuse me, I meant Mayor."

"Well then excuse _me_—I meant Sheriff." She grinned at him and Lassiter chuckled.

Gus was glad she was there; he could change the subject. "When did you retire from office, Karen?" He hoped it was okay to call her Karen now. Sure, he was sixty-five and they hadn't worked together in decades, but despite her present warmth, she would always be the imposing Chief Vick to him.

"Four years ago, after my two terms. It was an interesting run, I'll say that. San Francisco is a complicated city."

"Remind me, Guster," Lassiter asked with deceptive calm. "How long was it before you and Spencer came back to Santa Barbara?"

"A few years. Why are you so curious about this? Can't you just ask Juliet? Or Shawn?"

Karen watched the interplay between them and spoke before Lassiter could. "If the topic here is what happened to their relationship, the answer is that Carlton doesn't want to ask either one of _them_ anything about it. He needs a neutral party."

"You're more neutral than I am," he retorted.

"So I am. Would you get me a glass of wine, please?"

He was out of his chair as fast as his senior citizen legs could carry him.

**. . . .**

**. . .**

Karen surveyed her former Head Detective. "Damn, it's been a long time." They'd met last at Henry's funeral, but hadn't talked much.

"We got old," he agreed.

"Speak for yourself," she countered. He looked good anyway: all lean grace, only less tightly wound. Hard to believe they were both septuagenarians.

"Except for you," he amended.

"You think he'll actually bring me that wine?"

"Yeah, he forgot his phone." He gestured to the flat silver device, and grinned when she pocketed it.

She cut to the chase. "You're curious about Juliet and Shawn, and Gus doesn't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, and why not?"

"Probably because he feels guilty."

Lassiter's bright blue eyes widened briefly. "What did he do?"

Karen smiled. "He was Shawn's other half."

He was wary. "Should have been Juliet who was his other half."

"Exactly. But it was hard for her—for me too—starting over up there. We both had a lot to prove, to the city and to ourselves. I couldn't give Juliet the support she needed because I had my family to think about, so when Shawn arrived she was hopeful things were going to be different."

"Insanity," he muttered, "is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

"Yeah. She told me his proposal was more of a three-way thing between them and Gus. She wasn't sure who she was really getting engaged to—Shawn, Gus, or both of them."

"Guster should have stayed here." His tone was flat.

"I agree. I know he was at a turning point in his life, and we _all_ understand how important his bromance with Shawn was, but with Shawn honestly trying to commit to Juliet, I think each of those men needed to step back and let… life… make its own path."

Gus came back to the table, deposited a glass of wine in front of her, smoothly lied about going to speak with his wife, and vanished again. Karen didn't really blame him for wanting the escape, but he'd definitely miss the phone before too long.

Lassiter prompted her to go on.

"Let me ask you first why you haven't talked to her about this, if you're so curious."

"Because like I told Guster, it's not an area in which I feel my questions would be welcome."

Karen sipped the wine, smiling. "Even after twenty-plus years?"

His blue gaze fell to his beer for a moment.

She pressed on. "She's been married and divorced since then. You think she hasn't moved on?"

"Some things aren't far enough in the past," he said slowly.

"Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with you two… keeping company?"

Instant full-strength scowl. "I'd hardly call it keeping company. She lives over two hours away."

Karen hid her amusement… for a few seconds, then grinned.

Lassiter was still scowling. "What do you know about that anyway?"

"Juliet and I are friends too, you know. When she left the Frisco PD for the FBI, our boss-employee barrier was broken for good. She merely mentioned she'd been to visit you a few times this past year."

"It's not… visiting _me_," he protested. "With our new bed and breakfast, Old Sonora's a good weekend getaway, and besides, she likes Lily."

"Uh-huh."

"Karen, enough. I'm an old geezer and she's just an old friend."

"_You're_ an old geezer? I don't know how to break it to you, but Juliet's _sixty_." She knew it was wrong to enjoy his discomfiture, but some habits die hard.

"Not to me," he said softly. "To me she'll always be twenty-four."

Karen was surprised… and moved. His expression was reflective, and for a moment he looked so very young himself. "That's why, then."

"What's why?"

"That's why we call it keeping company." She sat back, smiling, as he renewed his impressive steel-blue scowl. "I'm sorry. Look, Marlowe's been gone two years and it's not like you're painting the town red with an assortment of harlots. You knew Juliet long before you even met Marlowe, and as partners you'll always have a special relationship."

"What. Happened. With. Spencer?" he growled.

She relented. "Okay. With Juliet working long hours—crime runs a bit more rampant in San Francisco than in Santa Barbara—Shawn and Gus fell right back into their bad habits. Exploring the city and every dining establishment took up a lot of their time, as well as Juliet's money. They wanted to consult with us but…" She took a sip of wine, making herself relax. "I couldn't risk it. The debacle of Trout and Mayor Swaggerty back here was too fresh."

Lassiter was giving her a most curious look, seeming to search her out. "You knew Spencer was a fraud."

Karen sighed. "I always suspected. Maybe not as strongly as you, but I suspected. I just looked beyond the chaos to getting cases solved. But in Frisco, things had to be different, and Juliet knew it too. After a few weeks of them trying to horn in on cases uninvited, I noticed they'd stopped coming around. I asked her about it and she suggested we have a drink after work sometime, on neutral ground."

She remembered the discussion keenly. Juliet began with the blunt statement that she'd figured out on Carlton's wedding day that Shawn wasn't psychic. She didn't apologize for not coming to her about it; Karen understood why. She went on to say she'd now told Shawn that if he wanted to consult with the Frisco PD, he'd have to do it without pretending to be psychic.

This, she explained, had flummoxed Shawn completely. He had no idea how to simply be an hyper-observant detective with an eidetic memory and powerful deductive reasoning skills—and _no gimmick_. Gus was all for it, but Shawn couldn't make it work. He had to be special.

Karen recalled Juliet making this statement without any sarcastic or critical connotations: he had to be special. A simple statement of fact. _He had to be special_.

How sad, his inability to see he was special anyway. Juliet loved him; Gus had abandoned his life and new job in Santa Barbara for him.

Lassiter listened to all this with that so-familiar assessing gaze. He might as well have been forty again, staring down a suspect in the Interrogation room—but he could never 'crack' _her_.

"He put the detective agency on hold rather than talk to me about legitimate consulting opportunities. Meanwhile, money was getting tight and Juliet was getting tired. She told me many years later that the theft of the ring in mid-proposal was an omen. A sign, if you will, one saying 'turn back now.' But she'd ignored it, even though Shawn became obsessed with tracking down the ring. Along with all the restaurants and food vendors they visited, he and Gus hit every pawn shop in town. It went on for months."

"Never could let go of anything," he commented neutrally.

"She said he was actually trying hard with her. But between Gus and the ring, and her long hours, everything was getting worse."

"Why didn't they get married anyway?"

"Because he had to have that ring. His grandmother's ring, I think. It had to be _that_ ring, or he couldn't do it."

He gave her a look. "Cop-out."

"He loved her," Karen said flatly. "You know he did."

"I know. But loving a woman doesn't make a man ready for marriage. Spencer bounced around for ten years before he ended up with Psych. Technically he continued to bounce around even _with_ Psych because there wasn't any structure to his days, or his life. Getting married, when your mindset is all about freedom, must have seemed impossible."

"He _loved_ her, and I believe he truly wanted to marry her."

"I'm not saying he lied to her about it," he said with relative calm. "I'm not even saying he was lying to himself. Come on, Karen. You know how people are."

She did know. She did. And he was probably right.

Mastering his fear enough to move to San Francisco to be with Juliet was impressive, but with Gus at his side it would have been so very easy for Shawn to slip back into the pretense that life could be as it always had been: fun, on someone else's dime. Being able to use the hunt for the ring as a delaying tactic was just a bonus.

"He loved her," she said again, with just as much conviction. "And she loved him. But it got to where even Gus could see it wasn't working. He came to me about it once, about a year and a half after he moved up there."

Lassiter leaned in closer to hear.

"He suspected he should go home. I told him he was right." She felt a little pang remembering the slightly crushed expression on Gus' face when she confirmed what he already knew: it was time, as a friend, to let his friend have the life he said he'd wanted, a life with the woman he loved. It was time to break away and find his own path.

As brave as he'd been to leave Santa Barbara, he needed to be even braver and go back alone.

"How long before the advice took?"

"Another six months," she admitted ruefully. "And it was too late anyway. Once he left, Shawn only had Juliet to focus on, but with her long hours, he was at loose ends. You know he's not good with loose ends."

He made a noise that was at least half snort.

"I tried to give her some time off. Set her up with seminars and training which would keep her schedule strictly nine-to-five. She tried so hard, Carlton."

"O'Hara never quit on anything she cared about," he agreed, and Karen had a feeling he was talking about himself as well as her boyfriend.

"A year later, he was gone too." From start to finish, the great relationship experiment in San Francisco had lasted three years. "A month after that, the ring turned up in a pawn shop. Juliet never told him. She just sent it back to Henry."

Lassiter sighed and sat back in his chair, massaging his neck briefly.

"From what she said, Gus was already set up in his new radio host job, and Shawn somehow ended up hiring himself out as a career counselor."

He was bemused. "Something which both blew my mind and didn't surprise me at all. The guy had done everything for at least five minutes, so teaching other people how to con their way into jobs made perfect sense."

"And," Karen said carefully, "it did feed into his narcissism very well. He was constantly getting accolades from all new people."

"He _seemed_ happy, but I could never tell whether he was acting or not. He used to come by the station to see Strode and McNab."

"And you," she teased, enjoying the scowl all over again. "Always thought he had a little crush on you."

"You're full of crap." The scowl turned to a grin. "But then I _was_ irresistible."

She laughed out loud, because this side of Lassiter had always been so rare and so entertaining. "Yes, you were. Paranoid, coffee-swilling, gun-slinging, perpetually angry and always, always ready to choke the daylights out of anyone who crossed you."

"With pride," he amended, still grinning.

"Definitely pride. So are you all caught up now? Any burning questions?"

He hesitated. "What… what made her give up on him, finally? The thing about Spencer is that no matter how incredibly annoying he could be, the people close to him never gave up. Why did she?"

Karen felt sadness, remembering Juliet's pain. She tried to explain—and the words weren't easy to choose—that Juliet had come to understand that the crucial difference between herself and Shawn was in how they valued truth differently. She loved him and trusted that he loved her, but in the scant time they could carve out for themselves, Shawn continued to live on the surface. He probably showed more of himself to Juliet than anyone else (especially after Gus moved home), but he still kept so much hidden out of habit.

Gus had told her once that Shawn realized he couldn't engage fully on an emotional level with anyone, including Gus. The _why_ didn't matter—a lingering sense of betrayal after his parents' divorce? his subsequent long-standing need to be the exact opposite of what his father wanted?—only the result. Living on the surface, with jokes and deflections and evasions and nothing but fun fun fun, was not for Juliet. She needed honesty, she needed practicality, she needed constancy, she needed reality. She needed to come home from a hard job and be herself with a guy who was _himself_: not the smokescreen he put up.

Then, Karen thought, there was the significant problem Juliet had never expressed in so many words (and Karen didn't tell this to Lassiter because she was confident he already knew): there were too many aspects of Shawn's personality that _were_ the real Shawn, not the screen. He _was_ narcissistic, and he _was_ petulant when crossed, and he _didn't_ pull his own weight in simple matters of household responsibilities, bill-paying and bathroom-cleaning and all the rest. Those things merely made him imperfect, like any other person, but in combination with the rest, someone like Juliet was bound to hit the wall eventually.

What Karen did say aloud to Lassiter, he understood. With a quiet nod and a thanks—for confirming what he suspected—he dropped the subject.

She had one of her own, though, as she stood up to go back to her husband. "Did you miss being a cop?"

Lassiter looked up at her, his expression hard to read. "I'm still a cop. Seventy-something and armed with only that damned cane, I'm still a cop."

She knew evasion when she heard it. "That's not what I asked you."

"It's the answer you're getting. Maybe my turf got smaller, but it also got a _hell_ of lot more precious. No regrets, Karen."

She also knew truth when she heard it. He probably did miss the job those first few years, and maybe more so after Lily got old enough to be her own person, but regrets? According to the intensity of that blue gaze, he truly had none.

Hugging him where he sat, she headed away to find her husband.

But just as she spotted Richard's slightly silver (and mostly bald) head, her pocket vibrated: Gus' phone. Time to return that.

Spotting him with Shawn Spencer at the buffet table, and thinking that the last time she'd seen Shawn was at Henry's funeral, she was nonetheless a little relieved (admittedly because of only _just_ having been verbally dissecting him) when he turned away at the sound of his wife's voice and disappeared in that direction carrying two laden plates.

"Thanks for the wine," she said when she reached Gus, holding out his phone.

"Thanks for the escape hatch," he retorted as he claimed his property. "It was getting way too intense."

"Oh come now. Lassiter's a kindly old widower. What's intense about him?"

"You need to adjust your definition of 'kindly,' I think." He went back to loading up his own two plates.

"I hope one of those is for Emmanuelle," Karen said, snatching a cherry tomato from the closest plate.

Gus glared. "They're _both_ for Emmanuelle. Ounce for ounce, she is the only woman who could ever put away as much food as I can."

"And she still looks good after all these years."

"Are you saying I _don't_?"

She had to laugh at his wounded tone. "Mr. Guster, I would never dream of such a thing."

"So what did you tell Lassiter back there?"

The abrupt question surprised her. "What were you _afraid_ to tell him?"

"I wasn't afraid. I was—" Gus stopped. "Okay, I was afraid. Look, I still feel guilty about those days. I know Shawn's okay and Juliet's okay and everybody's okay, but I still feel like if I hadn't moved up there they might have had a shot. Or… a better shot."

"Or ended it sooner," Karen countered. "There was a lot going on there which had nothing to do with you."

"I know." He was still unhappy. "But Shawn, see, he made this big choice. He was ready to go up there and be Mr. Juliet and do _their_ thing. He stepped away like he should have, but I fouled it up by following him and wanting everything to stay the same."

Karen put her hand on his arm gently. "And if he hadn't wanted everything to stay the same too, he'd have sent you home the next day."

"Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he was just trying to be my friend because I was pathetic and—"

"Gus," she cut him off. "It was nearly thirty years ago and nothing about either of those relationships was in any way typical. Things worked out how they worked out. If you'd stayed here, or if you'd come back sooner, maybe you wouldn't have landed that radio job. And if you hadn't landed the radio job you might not have reconnected with Emmanuelle. Or gone on to write the novels. But Shawn and Juliet would still have broken up no matter what, because they weren't meant to be."

"But—"

"And if they _were_ meant to be, he wouldn't have been able to make a life and a family of his own when it ended." She glanced across the room to where Shawn sat now with his wife, their son Curt at the table between them rolling his eyes at something Shawn was saying. They looked… happy. _Shawn_ looked happy.

Gus sighed. "You're right. I know you're right. Lassiter just stirred up old guilt, I guess. Canapé?"

"Ooh, thanks." It was Juliet who said it, however, coming up alongside them. "Hey, Karen. Gus, did you save me any crab puffs?"

"You know crab puffs are an every-man-for-himself deal," he admonished her.

Juliet was still sunny, even at sixty. Karen had watched her grow from a mid-twenties rookie detective to an experienced officer to a competent—possibly stellar—FBI agent. Yet somehow, with thirty-five years of life passed since she'd first arrived at the SBPD, Juliet O'Hara still… glowed.

It was easy to see why men were drawn to her, and given that she had such a big heart, easy to understand why she could make even the flimsiest of connections last.

She was (mock) arguing with Gus about how as a gentleman, he should have ensured that the most important women in his life, which naturally included his dear old friend, still got a little taste of succulent crab, and Karen stood back enjoying the banter.

The glow had faded during the end days of her relationship with Shawn, Karen had to admit. It faded again when her FBI casework took her to even darker places than "ordinary" police work. But it always came back, and she always had a smile ready.

Beyond her, Karen spotted Lassiter standing now, talking to his daughter but focused on where the three of them stood.

No, focused on Juliet.

_About time they got their chance_, she thought. He'd loved Marlowe and no doubt always would, but no one who knew him could doubt the strength of his connection to Juliet—or hers to him.

Gus was teasing Juliet about whether her blonde locks were completely legit. "Not that many women have honey blonde hair at your age."

"Of course it's legit," Juliet said. "It's the gray streaks which are just for show. At least I _have_ hair." She reached up to pat his head, laughing.

"I'm not bald because I'm old," he shot back.

"Neither am I," she said, and stole a crab puff off his plate.

"Watch it, retiree."

"Make me, _writer_."

"Children," Karen intervened. "Move away from the food if you're going to squabble. We're not having a post-funeral dust-up."

"Not another one, anyway."

"Hey, I wasn't even _at_ Miller's funeral," Gus protested. "That was _all_ Shawn." When Juliet tried to steal a napkin from him to wipe her fingers, he declared he was going to the only woman who was allowed to bully him: his wife.

Juliet hugged him before he moved on, and hugged Karen for good measure. "I'm sorry it has to be funerals which bring us together, but it's always good to see everyone."

"You see me all the time." It wasn't exactly true; they kept in regular touch by phone but for the last few years before Juliet's early retirement from the FBI, it had been difficult to meet in person.

Her look of mock reproach only made Karen laugh as they gravitated away from the buffet and found empty chairs by the wall.

"I talked to Francie McNab earlier. Her cancer is in full remission."

"Excellent." Karen was genuinely relieved: she didn't know Francie well but she knew how Buzz revered her and how he'd devoted himself to her care. "We've all been so lucky, really."

"Don't I know," Juliet said soberly.

In her early forties, and three years into a marriage to a perfectly nice guy, Juliet herself had developed breast cancer. Caught early, she was blessed to only require a lumpectomy and made a full recovery in a comparatively short time—but the perfectly nice guy couldn't handle his bright beautiful wife being… _human_… and thus as prone to disease and defect as anyone else. He'd muddled along as best he could for another year and then bailed, terrified she was going to fall ill again.

"Jerk."

Juliet looked up. "What'd I do?"

"Not you. Jonathan."

Her puzzled expression cleared. "Oh, him. History. I was thinking about how true it is, our good fortune. Things have worked out pretty well for everyone over the years considering our line of work. Dying of old age is looking more likely all the time."

"It's not glamorous, mind you. Not like the hailstorm of gunfire badass cops always want."

"Not me. I'll be happy to die a lingering death from boredom in a nursing home."

"After cracking the prescription drug theft ring and organizing the residents into a crime watch gang."

"Is that so wrong?" Juliet waited for Karen to laugh and then went on, "But _isn't_ it funny how things worked out? You the mayor of San Francisco. Me with the FBI. Gus a successful author. Carlton the sheriff of Old Sonora."

Karen followed her gaze, and realized she wasn't seeking out Carlton, but rather another face from the past.

She continued bemusedly, "And Shawn happily married with three kids."

Together they watched Shawn whispering to his wife and then toasting her dramatically. Always the showman, albeit tempered now by time.

"Did you ever think that would be you?"

Juliet tucked a curl behind her ear. "I suppose, early on. But reality set in. It was going to take a long time for Shawn to be ready for anything like that, and truthfully I could never give him what he most needed."

"You loved him," Karen said slowly. "That's enough for a lot of people."

"I did. But she… _worships_ him. Every day, her whole world is about him. About keeping him happy." She shrugged. "I loved him, but I still had… myself. I needed to be half of a whole, not subordinate to it. I know he treats her well, but what made their relationship work where ours failed is that all _she_ ever needed was for him to come home and smile at her."

"Some might suggest," Karen said just as slowly, "that she suffers from a form of personality disorder."

Juliet rolled her eyes. "Hello? She talks about herself in the third person and I think she still has a shrine to him in a back closet. At least that's what Gus says."

Karen had never been entirely clear on how Shawn connected with "Crazy Gina" again, but she recalled it had something to do with his post-Juliet depression, and Gina coming along to remind him of all the ways he was a perfectly good catch. She'd helped him find the career counselor job and over time was simply there for him—lying in wait, as it were—until he could finally see straight… and see _her_.

Gina was still a very pretty woman, even at sixty-something, a dark-eyed lithe little thing with a big bright smile. She kept Shawn close to her but he didn't seem to mind; narcissists never minded attention.

Their kids were bright and happy, Karen knew from Henry back when he bragged about them. Shawn's innate intelligence and all the things he'd learned from his father (against his will) made him a good parent in the end, and having his ego continually bolstered by his lovely and adoring wife certainly helped.

"Guess there's someone for everyone," she said finally.

Juliet eyed her. "Says the woman who's been married for eight hundred years to the same man."

"Come on, you're still marketable. And speaking of what you're doing with yourself, you've been retired going on eight months now. What are your plans? Other than visiting Carlton every chance you get?"

To her surprise, Juliet went a little pink. "I saw you talking to him earlier. Were you grilling him about me?"

"Actually, _he_ was grilling _me_ about you. About all the stuff he's been afraid to ask you."

"Like _what_?"

"Mostly the past." She gave her a wry smile. "Side effect of funerals. If it's any consolation, he turned as pink as you are now when I teased him about you two."

"Us two? There is no—" Juliet stopped at Karen's upraised hand. "Okay. I won't deny he's always been very important to me. And I won't deny he's a very good friend and I really missed having regular contact with him. And I also won't deny he's…"

"Pretty hot stuff?"

Juliet resolutely looked away.

Except not really; again, Karen followed her gaze and this time she was indeed looking at Carlton, who stood now with Buzz McNab and Patricia Allen, facing slightly away from them. He seemed relaxed, talking with people who had once been able to annoy the ever-living crap out of him, and even at seventy-two he was an impressive man, simultaneously radiating both coiled energy and deep quiet.

"I like his wavy white hair," Juliet said softly.

"Mmm-hmm. Complements those big blue eyes."

"I'm moving to Old Sonora."

Karen blinked. "Come again?"

Juliet stared down at her folded hands, but her voice was sure. "Lily's getting married and wants to spend some time with her bridegroom before she settles back into running the place. They need a new sheriff and Carlton says there's no reason Old Sonora can't break a few historical rules by having me take it on, and honestly it sounds like a lot of fun. I've worked really hard for a really long time, Karen, and I'm ready to have some fun."

"You deserve it."

"Plus you know… we were always close." She glanced up at her briefly. "Not like that. But close like partners can be. Kind of married to each other through the job, you know? Visiting him again brought back all that closeness and I… I just don't want to lose it again."

_The age difference might make that dream moot_, Karen thought, and then… _who are you kidding? Carlton Lassiter will live to be a hundred and forty_.

"Then you should do it," she declared. "You have more than earned your right to enjoy your retirement with people you care about."

The way Juliet beamed, she might as well have been twenty-four again.

_Just the way Carlton saw her._

Karen smiled. "Go tell him you decided."

Juliet didn't hesitate; she got up and crossed to her old partner and friend. Carlton smiled down at her and she smiled up at him and together they moved away from the others and made their own space—the way they had as partners—isolated from everyone around them and secure in the solidity of their connection.

Whether it became more, Karen wouldn't let herself predict. But what it was now was nice to see, and she chose to be hopeful for both of them.

Her husband settled into the seat Juliet had vacated. "You holding up under all this schmoozing?"

Sighing, she let herself lean into his shoulder. "I was mayor for eight years. Schmoozing is second nature."

Richard put his arm around her, squeezing. "We've been to too many funerals since you retired."

"That's because we're old, honey."

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. So when was this chief the Chief?"

Karen thought about it. "Let me see… he stepped up after Lassiter left and stayed on a good fifteen years. They said he was quiet and unobtrusive and ran a clean, efficient department."

"So he retired a decade ago? What did he do after that? I asked a bunch of people and no one seemed to know."

She shook her head. "That was the thing about Dobson. No one really knew anything about him at all. He just sort of blended in wherever he went."

"Huh."

"Good funeral though. He'd have enjoyed this part of it."

"How do you know?"

She frowned. "Truthfully… I don't."

Richard laughed. "You ready to go back to the hotel?"

"Yes, please. Let me say a few goodbyes first?"

He grimaced. "We only have the room until tomorrow morning."

She pretended to swat him. "I'll just be a minute," she promised.

But when she stood up and looked around, she felt as if maybe she was done for now. Maybe it was okay to slip away quietly this time.

"On second thought," she said, smiling at Richard. "Let's find Iris and make a clean getaway."

He was only too happy to oblige, but she did pause in the doorway leading out of the grand hall to look one last time at Buzz and Francie, Gus and Emmanuelle, Shawn and Gina… and Juliet and Carlton.

She said silent farewells to them and to those who had gone ahead: Woody, Henry, Miller and now Dobson.

They'd all meet again—no one lived forever—and there would be other milestones along the way. Lily's wedding—even Iris' wedding someday—maybe a visit to Old Sonora?

Whatever life brought, nothing could take away their memories and their connections, so in truth, everything was as it should be.

They'd been lucky overall. Blessed. They still were.

Karen paused to kiss Richard on the cheek, and whispered that she still loved the old codger after all this time.

And she hoped there was still a lot more time for them to share.

**. . . . .**

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**E N D**


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